‘Meet Your Creator’ theme at this year’s ever popular Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors Showcase. Watch GoSee’s favourites online.

The Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors’ Showcase entered its 22nd year in Cannes and has become an integral part of the Cannes Festival programme. Following last year’s ‘Future Music Video Challenge by MOBY’, this year the theme was ‘Meet your creator’. However, this didn’t quite apply to us.

Since we the GoSee editors are kept busy rushing between appointments and events, we decided to opt for a more laidback approach this year. So we swapped the festival for the beach and got creative. We called the home office, passed on the download orders, had a quick sandy mood board chat in trunks and stuck to a tight image shoot schedule.

The 18 directors presented in the showcases were handpicked over the year and researched in great detail. We were so excited to discover that we had already screened a film on GoSee, and were familiar with two more. After all, Saatchi selected the winning work with the help of 140 offices worldwide.

The S&S creative commented on their selection, ‘the trends for 2012 are retro animation (see James Curran’s ‘Tintin’ titles) and 3D motion capture animation (see Stuart Aitken’s ‘Dead Island’ computer game trailer); Beautifully shot cinematic music promos and movie credits (see Tim Miller’s ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ trailer and Skinny’s ‘Iconic’ promo) and there are some unique, original ideas such as Perkins and Kulash’s ‘Needing/Getting’, James W. Griffiths’ ‘Splitscreen: A Love Story’ and Andrew Thomas Huang’s stunning ‘Solipsist’, which takes its influences from the natural world and uses CGI fused with an artistic eye to create a cinematic art installation.’ The 18 winning entries in 2012 hail from the USA, France, Brazil, Canada, Norway, Australia and the UK.


Showcase 2012
Mickey Smith – ‘Dark Side of the Lens’ – a have to go see!
Andrew Thomas Huang - ‘Solipsist’
Brian L. Perkins & Damian Kulash, Jr. - OK Go ‘Needing/Getting’
Daniel Strange - ‘Dogs – Loyalty’
Fleur & Manu - Etienne de Crecy ‘No Brain’
Graydon Sheppard - ‘Shit Girls Say’ - the internet phenomenon
James Curran - ‘Tintin’ Titles
James W. Griffiths - ‘Splitscreen: A Love Story’
Jones + Tino - Nike ‘Addiction’
Lars Åndheim & Christoffer Lossius - Lasse Passage ‘Say Say Say’ unsettlingly beautiful!
Ninian Doff - Fulton Light ‘Staring Out The Window’
Rhys Thomas - ‘British Movie’ - What???
Rick Mereki - ‘Move’
Seyi Peter-Thomas - ‘Hard Times’
Skinny - Moonbootica – ‘Iconic’
Stuart Aitken - ‘Dead Island’ - Zombielicious
Tim Miller - ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ Trailer
William Joyce & Brandon Oldenburg - ‘The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore’ – another go see!

Tom Eslinger, Worldwide Creative Director Digital on the reel: ‘the 2012 Showcase shows how diverse media channels are bringing more and more content to the surface, making this a really exciting collection which reflects how we come in contact with ideas and all things visual. The influence of not only rapid-to-create technology, but also rapid-to-distribute channels, is seen in the quality and content, as well as where the work is connecting with people and communities.’

NDS Spokesperson and CEO Del Campo Saatchi & Saatchi Argentina said: ‘people know that the New Directors’ Showcase is one of Cannes most unmissable events. This gives us a great deal of responsibility when it comes to selecting directors. For years this selection process has been even more of a challenge than judging work in advertising festivals, because we're aware of the transformations it creates in our industry year after year.’

Saatchi & Saatchi’s Award-winning Senior Creatives Jonathan Santana & Xander Smith once again created the 2012 intro show. The flying machines of their ‘Meet Your Creator’ remind us of Fritz Lang’s style teamed with an 80s blockbuster aesthetic, in keeping with Huxley’s Brave New World. Saatchi & Saatchi Senior Creatives Jonathan Santana and Xander Smith said of their inspiration: ‘the New Directors’ Showcase is revered ground. A lot of big names have been launched in the past by the Showcase. It’s for this very reason that we’ve chosen to venture down the ‘sacred’ path. A path of bright lights, flying beings and the miracles performed by Creators.’

You can watch the full-length showcase as a webcast on the Cannes Lions website, NDS channel or YouTube, plus the individual films are available for your viewing pleasure here on GoSee. We particularly recommend ‘Dark Side of the Lens’ by Mickey Smith plus Solipsist by director Andrew Thomas Huang.

We were also especially taken by ‘Hard Times’ by Barry Flanagan & Seyi Peter-Thomas, the ‘Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Titles’ by Tim Miller and the fantastic ‘Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore’ by William Joyce & Brandon Oldenburg.